This book can be viewed as an ethical opportunity. By considering the value that a serious book like Emma for instance might add to the quality of Alice's character, Fay hopes to entice her to step forward into the land of serious literature. She even uses a metaphor called the City of Invention which is a home for the ideas and literature of artists, where ideas live in neighborhoods with like-minded authors. She says that if Alice wants to move to the City of Invention, she should read Austen.
Jane Austen is not what she seems on the surface, says Fay. Although the novels assume much pretense, they are secretly rebellious in spirit, kicking against the goads of a repressive community. Fay reminds Alice that Austen was raised by a minister with narrow ideas of what a woman should and should not do. She says that in the same way Alice kicked against the goads of society by dying her hair green, so also Austen attained independence and freedom.
The difference is that Austen is widely accepted at as a genius and prophetic voice for women. For Fay, that is the most essential part of the literature, because Fay sees that Alice has the same desires that Austen had, except that Austen's life was filled with discipline, excellence, and mastery, whereas Alice struggles to finish a novel. Therefore, feminism and serious literature are offered as the tools for Alice's ethical progress, and when she succeeds, Fay and Enid discuss that aspect of feminism.
